New Chairs | Set of 8 - Moderne Gallery

George Nakashima
New Chairs | Set of 8, 1980-1981

Dimensions:
18.5 × 22 × 35.5 in (W x D x H)
46.99 x 55.88 x 90.17 cm

Material: American Black Walnut, Hickory

Seat Height: 17 in

A set of eight George Nakashima “New Chairs” crafted from American black walnut and hickory.

“The New Chair was prominently featured in Nakashima’s 1955 catalogue, where it was introduced as a major addition to his gradually expanding line. Although very much in the manner of earlier designs indebted to the Windsor chair, the New Chair differed in several respects.

While its turned H-shaped stretcher is the most elaborate of Nakashima’s seating support systems, the overall design of the chair is among his most serene. Lacking the exuberant curvature used for the crest rail of the Armchair and Straight-Backed Chair, or the dramatic cantilever of the Conoid Chair, the New Chair became one of the firm’s most popular in the 1950s and afterward.

In plan, the bent crest rail of the New Chair is subdued, but in elevation, it has a more expressive line than other Nakashima chairs. Recalling the yoke-back crest rail of Chinese chairs originating in the Ming dynasty, this element was later used by the woodworking for several other seating designs. That the source was Chinese, not Japanese, is understandable. With no history of sophisticated seating forms, Japanese design could not provide Nakashima with examples to interpret. The impact of Japanese design upon Nakashima was more cerebral, helping him shape much of his design philosophy and his appreciate for materials. At the tr\urn of the century even Frank Lloyd Wright praised the Japanese for their sensitive use of wood, a precious commodity in their country. Veneering, a standard procedure in Western woodworking trades, was renounced by Wright and the Japanese as a destructive process.

Nakashima’s respect for the inherent qualities of craftsman-made designs is evident in the New Chair. Hickory, the standard material used by Windsor chair makers of the eighteenth century, was suitable only for the spindles. They would never have used it for the shaped seats, which required a common wood, such as chestnut or sash, that would lend itself to carving. Nakashima followed the lead of these earlier woodworkers in his selection of walnut for the seat of the New Chair” (‘George Nakashima Full Circle’, Derek E. Ostergard, 1989, p.154).

George Nakashima was born in Spokane, Washington in 1905 to Japanese parents who had immigrated to the United States. Educated and trained as an architect at the University of Washington, Nakashima received his Master’s degree in Architecture from M.I.T. in 1930. After working briefly as an architect in the United States he left for Paris seeking the creative energies of one of the great urban centers of the day. From there he traveled extensively, ending up at the home of his grandmother, living on a farm on the outskirts of Tokyo.